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Psychosocial work environment and leisure-time physical activity: the Stormont Study
journal contribution
posted on 2015-12-04, 11:39 authored by Jonathan Houdmont, Stacy ClemesStacy Clemes, Fehmidah MunirFehmidah Munir, Kelly Wilson, Robert Kerr, Ken AddleyBackground Research findings on the relationship between the psychosocial work environment and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) are equivocal. This might partly be due to studies having focused on a
restricted set of psychosocial dimensions, thereby failing to capture all relevant domains. Aims
To examine cross-sectional associations between seven psychosocial work environment domains and LTPA in a large sample of UK civil servants and to profile LTPA and consider this in relation to UK government recommendations on physical activity.
Methods
In 2012 Northern Ireland Civil Service employees completed a questionnaire including measures of psychosocial working conditions (Management Standards Indicator Tool) and LTPA. We applied bivariate correlations and linear regression analyses to examine relations between psychosocial working conditions and LTPA.
Results
Of 26000 civil servants contacted, 5235 (20%) completed the questionnaire. 24% of men and 17% of women reported having undertaken 30 min or more of physical activity on five or more days in the
past week. In men, job control (−0.08) and peer support (−0.05) were weakly but significantly negatively correlated with LTPA, indicating that higher levels of exposure to these psychosocial hazards
was associated with lower levels of LTPA. Job role (−0.05) was weakly but significantly negatively correlated with LTPA in women. These psychosocial work characteristics accounted for 1% or less
of the variance in LTPA.
Conclusions
Longitudinal research to examine cause–effect relations between psychosocial work characteristics and LTPA might identify opportunities for psychosocial job redesign to increase employees’ physical activity during leisure time.
Funding
This study was funded by a grant from the Doughty Fund of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE-OXFORDVolume
65Issue
3Pages
215 - 219 (5)Citation
HOUDMONT, J. ...et al., 2015. Psychosocial work environment and leisure-time physical activity: the Stormont Study. Occupational Medicine, 65(3), pp. 215-219.Publisher
© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational MedicineVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2015Notes
This paper is in closed access.ISSN
0962-7480Publisher version
Language
- en